Gomez: Liquid Skin (Hut)
A year after bagging the Mercury Music Prize, Gomez are back with their second, even more accomplished album, but guess what? Rock and roll has since moved East, leaving these Western-influenced dudes no other option than to go and conquer America. No problemo, judging from tracks like Hangover, Blue Moon Rising and Las Vegas Dealer. Gomez haven't lost that ramshackle ranchero style which is essential to their appeal - what's more, they seem to have rousted some of their wilder influences and tied them into a coherent set of songs, using sitars, guitars, honky-tonk piano and orchestral bits to enhance the southern flavour. Songs such as Rhythm & Blues Alibi, Rosalita and Devil Will Ride should reawaken Americans' nostalgia for Little Feat and New Riders Of The Purple Sage.
Kevin Courtney
Leftfield: Rhythm & Stealth (Hard Hands)
In some ways, the waves from Leftism, Leftfield's seismic 1995 debut, are still reverberating. An album which showed you didn't have to compromise to cross from underground to mainstream, it paved the way for the likes of Underworld, Orbital and especially the Chemical Brothers to come and have a go. With Rhythm & Stealth, Paul Daley and Neil Barnes take a further step in the right direction. Intense and dark, this is an album where the bass remains king. A track like Phat Planet (from the Guinness advert with the horses) may pulsate and pounce with remarkable intent but it's the likes of Dusted, with Roots Manuva, or Afrika Shox, with original space cadet Afrika Bambaataa, which are far more likely to overpower with their fierce inbuilt fury. Leftfield are still kings of the widest frontiers.
Jim Carroll
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: Acme Plus (Mute)
On their 1998 album, Acme, this New York Trio took the blues out into the alleyway and beat it up bad; now comes Acme Plus, an album of remixes by such bluesologists as David Holmes, Moby, Dante Ross, Calvin Johnson and The Automator. As if Acme didn't deconstruct the blues enough, this companion album attempts to bring out hidden nuances in the original songs, offering alternative mixes, exclusive tracks and remixes. The effect is still the same, though: a brainbusting session of primal shout vocals, car-crash guitars and skull-bashing drums, performed with joyous abandon and irreverent cool. Any similarity to traditional blues is purely coincidental, but a resemblance to good, spiky rock'n'roll is definitely the intention in tracks such as Heavy, Get Down Lover and Right Place, Wrong Time. Kevin Courtney